Saturday, June 27, 2009

Friday, June 26, 2009

It's 11:36pm right now and I can't sleep, so I thought it would be a good time to make a card for a friend's birthday. This particular friend has actually gotten inspired by me posting about my cards and wants to start card making too! Yay! I really need to kick my ass into gear and pack up the starter kit I bought for her. I just need a box from the post office. I'll probably do that tomorrow. Sorry BriBri! I know I lag. The inspiration for this card came from Ali Edwards (http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2009/06/fantastic-adventure.html). I loved the stitched heart on her scrapbook page and I had recently bought some Heidi Swapp Tricolor Hearts Glossy Chipboard Shapes (self adhesive too!) so I decided to try it out. I also desperately wanted to use my eyelet border punch from Stampin Up. So here's how it turned out. I may actually scrap this card and redo it since I think the heart and the "U" should be closer together so they are more of a main focal point but we'll see.

Monday, June 22, 2009

OK not really.. well kinda. I found these cute wall decorations on delight.com and thought they would go perfect on a large wall space. It just needed something. The pictures really don't do them justice but I'm really happy with how they look. They were really easy to install too. You just place a tack into the wall and the dragonflies themselves, are magnetic. So if I really wanted to, I could reposition them anytime I want.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

For this color inspiration challenge I decided to make a Father's Day card since I'm going to be having dinner with my family. These colors seemed like the perfect opportunity to make something masculine so it worked out perfect. I actually made two other cards but I think this one turned out the best. I used Kristina's star template which was posted a while back on the Hero Arts blog. Since my dad is big into astronomy, this star card seemed perfect for the ocassion. The bigger star stamp is from a Hero Arts sentiment stamp set and the smaller one is from Simply Serif alphabet stamp set from Stampin Up.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Last week Justyn and I went to Daphne's which is a Mediterranean fast food place. Weird right? Well, anyway, they have this really good and comforting Avogolemono soup. That's basically lemon, rice & chicken soup. While we ate lunch, Justyn asked me why I don't cook soup more often since it is essentially one of my favorite foods. I shrugged. I didn't have an answer. Why don't I cook it?

I modified the recipe slightly by using raw chicken instead of pre-cooked so that I could control the salt level. I was going to use the roasted chicken that they have at the grocery store but had second thoughts about it.

I chopped up the veggies...

And prepped the lemons and herbs. I added lemon zest to make it extra lemony.

Then sweat the veggies and added salt & pepper.

The orzo went in.

And the chicken.

And then the broth.

I let it come to a boil before tempering in the eggs and adding the dill.

That's it! The recipe was fairly easy so now I don't have an excuse to make soup, or at least this one, on a work day :) The soup was really good although I shouldn't have added the juice from the 3rd lemon. It was slightly too tart at that point. Also I found the soup wasn't as thick as the one from Daphne's so I need to adjust that next time somehow.

Tonight I'm going to an Artichoke Party. I've never been to one before and I'm supposed to bring anything but I want to. Of all the recipes on the Internet you'd think people would come up with more inventive ways of cooking with artichokes. Everyone makes spinach cheese dip with it! Come on, that's no fun! I finally found a couple recipes that used artichokes in a more creative way. Artichoke Nibbles (Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Artichoke-Nibbles/Detail.aspx)

The recipe is very easy and low maintenance. You're basically throwing in all the ingrediants together and then baking it. While the mixture baked, I squeezed in time to make the Jamaican Jerk Beef mixture for tomorrow's BBQ.

I thought it would be a fun way to cut the artichoke quiche (I'm calling it a quiche cuz that's what it tastes like) into circles and put it on top of a ritz cracker. The reviews of the recipe said that it needed an extra crunch and upon trying it, I agreed. I then garnished with leaves of parsley. Cute huh? Well, I thought so.. and they're pretty good. I was kinda thinking this wasn't going to taste great but I was wrong. Delish!

Eek! If I hadn't checked the deadline today I would've missed posting my card. I wanted to try using Gimp to make the picture better but I just don't have time.

Today I need to make Jamaican Jerk Beef mixture for puff pastries because we're going to a BBQ tomorrow and today I need to make some mini artichoke quiches for an artichoke themed party.

Anyway, one of my friends needed a couple "thank you" cards and she really adored the Ali Edwards Technique Tuesday Loving Words stamp set so she requested that I incorporate that stamp with Kristina's color inspiration challenge this week. So, here's what I came up with.

One of my other friends sketched out some other designs that would be more cohesive. I may use those sketches for another challenge :) Thanks Selena!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Besides the card I made last night, I haven't really done much cardmaking. I guess it's mostly because Kristina Werner hasn't posted a new challenge in a while. I don't blame her though. I know she's got a schedule of her own just like me. I don't ever think a person should be chained to a blog just because people want you to. We all have lives to live. OK fine, confession time. I totally check her blog every day just to see if there are any updates heh. What can I say? I'm a total fan girl.

Anyway, I really hated seeing my craft supplies sitting there unused and neglected so I tried thinking of another way to utilize everything I've bought so far. If I'm not going to make cards, then how about I try to scrapbook. I gotta tell you, I hate scrapbooking. I always struggle with layouts because I'm working on a larger surface area. With cards, it's easy to balance things and fill up space. I am at a total loss when it comes to scrapbooking. I've posted some previous scrapbook pages but I wasn't completely happy with them.

Thanks to Rebecca Leighann, a Garden Girl on twopeasinabucket.com, she came out with this (http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/userblogpost.asp?id=41856) sketch which helped A LOT. I had some issues with picking the right picture and cutting it down to the right size but as I played around with the layout, I finally got it to where I was completely satisfied with how it turned out.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Man! 4 posts in a row? I'm on a roll heh.. though this will be the last one for tonight. Time for bed soon! I found this really cool tutorial on youtube by Chris416Ward. You basically layer folded ribbon on top of each other and what you get is a pretty flower. I decided to try it out tonight and made a card with it. I combined her technique with Dawn McVey's paper leaves :)

It must be the beautiful weather or coincidence but we had 3 parties to attend to. 3!! We either have nothing planned on the weekend or it's super busy. I mentioned in my previous post that I made Jamaican Jerk Beef Pastries for the two parties.

The first party we went to was the WeenieRoast 2009. I love going to this particular party because Drew always makes really good smokey flavorful tri-tip in his smoker. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Doesn't that look delicious?

We couldn't stay long but I snapped a few pictures of people before we left to go to the next party.

Leyla's house was next. It was Cormac's birthday so she invited a bunch of us over to celebrate and hang out. The food was again, amazing. This tiny Thai chick made this unbelieveable food. Savory tapioca balls filled with pork and little yummy bits, chicken wings, seafood salad & lettuce rolls. Oh man... she totally trumped my measly one dish of pastries heh. I was relieved that she brought all of that because I was starving by then. I would've eaten all of it if we stayed longer heh.

People pics...

The last stop of the night was Ken's surprise birthday at Old Wagon in Downtown San Jose. Melanie organized all of it and if I hadn't checked my voicemail the morning of, we would've totally missed out. I'm glad we didn't though cuz I had a blast! It was the perfect ending to a long day. Happy Birthday Ken! :)